Connectors and I/O

In total, MSI equipped the Z270 XPower Titanium Edition motherboard with six angled SATA 6Gbps connectors, which have all been natively wired to the PCH. On top of that there are two straight SATA-III connectors. This means there are eight native SATA-III ports. Right next to those six SATA ports there is one U.2 connector. Between the full-sized PCIe slot there is a total of three M.2 x4 Gen 3 slots. With this motherboard you get four full-sized PCIe slots, whereas the first and the thrid receive metal reinforcements. This should help protecting the slots from breaking while transporting a full system with graphic card(s) installed. From top to bottom for the PCIe 16x slots have been wired using 16 lanes, 8 lanes, 8 lanes and 8 lanes. In reality the following configurations are possible: x16/0/0/x4, x8/0/x8/x4 or x8/x4/x4/x4. This means you can do 8x/8x SLI/CrossFire or 8x/8x/4x CrossFireX (3-way). Basically these are the standard options you get with any Intel's Z270 based motherboard, that does not feature a PLX chip. The placement of the PCIe connectors has been well thought. Apart from that there are two PCIe x1 Gen 3.0 slots. Something that is almost standard nowadays with premium motherboards, and especiall motherboards that are marketed for overclocking, are the practical onboard power and reset as well as clear CMOS button. Furtheremore there is also a debug LED. MSI equipped this board with two physical BIOS chips and an and their external OC Dashboard.

There is a total of six fan headers on the MSI Z270 XPower Gaming Titanium Edition which is enough, to provide a high-end system with fresh air. The headers have been located close to the CPU as well as spread over the board. Other than that it's a good thing that all of them feature four pins, which allows for rpm regulation in BIOS as well as under Windows. Furthermore there is a plethora of additional headers you find listed below:

Lighting

• 1 x 4-pin RGB LED connector

Fan headers

• 1 x 4-pin CPU fan connector
• 4 x 4-pin system fan connectors

Watercooling connectors

• 1 x 4-pin water-pump-fan connector

Overclocking and debugging connectors

• 1 x 2-pin Slow mode connector
• 1 x 2-pin OC retry connector

Additional connectors

• 1 x USB 3.1 front panel connector
• 1 x Front panel audio connector(s) (AAFP)
• 1 x System panel(s) (Q-Connector)
• 1 x TPM connector(s)
• 1 x TPM module connector
• 1 x Front panel audio connector
• 2 x System panel connectors
• 1 x Chassis Intrusion connector

Looking at the external connectors placed directly at the I/O-panel, MSI equipped the new Z270 XPower Titanium Edition motherboard with a P/S2 connector, six USB 3.1 ports (5 x Type-A and 1 x Type-C), three USB 2.0 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, one HDMI and one DisplayPort output, a CLR_CMOS button as well as an optical out and the analogue audio panel.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 14 - SiSoft Sandra 2
Page 2 - Specs and Delivery	Page 15 - UC Bench
Page 3 - Features	Page 16 - Super Pi 1M / 32M
Page 4 - Layout	Page 17 - wPrime 1024M Multi Core
Page 5 - Connectors and I/O	Page 18 - Cinebench
Page 6 - BIOS	Page 19 - Tomb Raider
Page 7 - Test setup	Page 20 - Metro Last Light
Page 8 - Preview / Gallery	Page 21 - Sleeping Dogs
Page 9 - 3D Mark	Page 22 - Power Consumption
Page 10 - 3D Mark 11	Page 23 - Performance Rating
Page 11 - 3D Mark Vantage	Page 24 - Price Comparison
Page 12 - PC Mark 8	Page 25 - Conclusion
Page 13 - SiSoft Sandra 1